Have you ever found working with a recruiter a frustrating experience? If you have, you are not alone.

Hiring managers can become frustrated with their recruiters and let’s face it, the entire recruitment process, when they don’t see the level of sales talent they need to be successful.

Five Ways to Get 100% More from Your Sales Recruiters

#1 – Develop a Clear Position Profile and Communicate “Top Three Candidate Must Haves.”

Recruiters identify sales talent based on the information they gather from their hiring managers. As a hiring manager, it can be tempting to skip over preparing a detailed position profile simply because it can take extra time.

It’s not uncommon to wonder why your recruiter can’t just read the job description and figure it out from there?

Unfortunately this isn’t the best way to get top results. Recruiters need more information than the job description to identify and recruit the right sales candidates.

Remember, your recruiters are going after passive candidates.

If you want the attention of the best sales candidates, the top 25%, your recruiters will need more insight into the position than can be found on a job description.

They will also need a deep understanding of the critical components and skills you’ve defined for the role.

Striving for clarity and accuracy in the beginning of the of the search process will bring big dividends.

What are your top three Must Have’s?

The best profile is one that states your Top Three Requirements otherwise known as your Top 3 Must Haves for the position.

Defining your top three must have’s will save you and your recruiters hours of time during the beginning stages of the recruitment process.

In other words, if your top three must haves are clear, you’ll see more candidates who match your ideal candidate profile.

Define the key characteristics you’re looking for in your next sales higher.

Some of the strengths you may be looking for could include: high energy levels, the drive to find new business, persuasive presentation skills, the ability to sell on value, and selling by following a methodical sales process.

For each key characteristic your seeking, define a question your recruiter can ask the potential sales candidates to assess for the characteristic.

Make sure to describe the kind of information you’re looking for in the answers.

Third Must Have *Specific Skills.*

You may have one item that is very specific to your industry or sales process. For example, perhaps you want to see candidates who have given their own demos, no exceptions.

Or candidates who have a degree in engineering, no exceptions. This would be a Specific Must Have --no exceptions.

One hundred percent of the candidates that make it to you must have this specific requirement for the role.

#2 – Provide Timely Feedback

it’s important to remember that it takes hours to recruit passive candidates. Your feedback as a hiring manager helps your recruiters determine the types of candidates they are trying to recruit.

If you can clearly communicate the reasons why candidates are a strong match or not, then your recruiter will be able to adjust the types of candidates their searching for.

Without feedback your recruiters are likely to move on to other open positions.

Recruiters have multiple jobs to fill at all times and they will move on to working on openings where they are having the most success.

They may not tell you there putting a soft pause on your position, but there is a tendency to recruit for hiring managers who are attentive and make it a priority to give feedback on all candidates presented, interviewed, and assessed.

Often the recruiting department takes the brunt of public criticism for not getting back to candidates with interview feedback.

If you communicate feedback to your recruiter, they can communicate the information and share timely updates with candidates.

Updated Candidates are Happy Candidates

The better the overall experience with your organization, the more likely new candidates will be interested in interviewing with your sales organization.

#4 – Give Your Recruiter Powerful Word Tracks

if you can help your recruiter wordsmith the reasons why a candidate would leave their current job to come to your organization, you will attract better recruits. In today’s market there are hundreds of enterprise sales positions available.

Candidates, especially top-sales candidates, have more job choices today than they’ve had in over a decade.

If you want to attract the top 25%, you’ll need to help your recruiter come up with the verbiage necessary to get the attention of top-performing reps.

#5-- Develop A Clear Interview Process

Before you start interviewing candidates outline the interview process. Share this outline with everyone involved.

This will give all parties a clear sense of next steps, the interview timeline, and the people involved in the decision-making process.

With a clearly outlined interview process recruiters can manage candidate expectations and recruit the candidates you are most interested in hiring.

Building a Trusted Partnership is the Way to Better Sales Talent

If you learn how to work well with your sales recruitment team you will be able to hire better sales candidates than you ever imagined.

Collaborating well with your hiring team is your secret weapon to recruiting All-Star sales talent.

If you want to capture your sales recruiter’s attention, show them your committed to giving them the resources they need to recruit and attract top sales professionals.